Nostalgic Ranting

This was written by me some years back.

I feel nostalgic and quite glad to be alive as I post it today.

I have felt like waiting at the tip of the iceberg, as the massive ice melts down, slowly but surely giving way to the cold motionless water of the sea. The situation is desperate where you know there is no one to your rescue. You know the horrific consequences of the inevitable. But you can do nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is sinking. And it will take you and me along with it. Wild reveries of thoughts occur in my mind.

As a human there are plans you devise, or at least try to think of a constructive end to a calamity. I am trying to calm down. ‘Deep breath in’ and ‘Breathe out’ I tell myself. The various “alternative solutions of the problem” as taught in management programs or, B-schools, the more colloquial or I should say the “in” way of calling the IIMs and the lesser ones. I call the “lesser ones” as lesser because they are not tagged with the illustrious magical letters I.I.M. This is how millions of Indian engineering graduates (or even those not from India) feel in the same vein, as lesser to the IITs. Note the double I’s in IIT and IIM…it cannot get any clearer than this (me myself and 'I') Whoever thought of what they teach in there behind those sleek walls with sleeker whiteboards and all the big honchos of tomorrow watching at their mentors in rapt attentiveness with eyes behind the sleekest of all glasses and frames? Is it about I’s or ‘you’s or the quintessential ‘me’s? Disaster Management maybe.

But yes, again the situation is desperate. You classify the alternative solutions into primary and secondary solutions as per your intellect that you feel which solution should be primary and which of those poor desperate attempts to survival are secondary or vice versa. And all get down to the ultimate solution of cracking the case. Here…let me remind you, as I might have swerved miles from where I was, i.e. at the tip of the iceberg. Should I bribe one of those penguins to piggybacking me to the shore with a shoal of fish? But where do I find the fish…. as a matter of fact where are the penguins I can feed with fish that in turn would piggyback me to the shore? Then I can always try use the SOS but then it reminds me of the song “Who will save your souls”. Being so guilt-ridden throughout our lives who will save our souls for the lies that we told! Hallelujah!

Which leads to another solution of praying to god…A multitude of humanity does that in times of desperation like these. They call it faith. And then they grow old. And they say it works. Probably it works to kill time, when it comes to waiting through a reckoning of hapless extermination. You don’t believe me? Look at what the Vedas say about Vridha-avastha and you’ll know. Look at the hordes of religious channels of all sects preaching alternate ways to attain god or in more subtle terms of better living. I call it the New Wave Of Indian Spiritualism. But I won’t ask you to try that here, where I am; at the tip of the iceberg. Nothing is working here, degrees, qualifications, nor bribery nor religion. As the ice melts inch by inch…I’m going down down down. I am not even carrying a bottle to leave a letter of my ranting behind. I just feel the frost biting into me and the icy water touching my feet. Down I go into the subzero. Every function in my body is taking an effort…Hypothermia strikes! I am sinking…Life is…Gasp Gasp…Blurp Blurp…Bubble Bubble……@#*$!@#$@..................@#@......................................blurp.